


Dear Lizzie

by perennial



Category: Dear Frankie (2004)
Genre: F/M, I loved the end of this film, Post-Canon, Post-Movie, but let's be real, we were all hoping there would be something like this after the credits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 17:58:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3778057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennial/pseuds/perennial
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life settles into a rhythm.<br/>Then he comes back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Lizzie

Life settles into a rhythm: Frankie attends school, Lizzie works at Marie’s, Nell keeps house; until they have been here longer than they have stayed anywhere. Frankie does not notice, and if Nell does she says nothing about it, probably thinking that if she draws attention to the fact her daughter will panic and start packing.

For her part, said daughter has been counting down the days to this point on the calendar since the day she read the letter her son wrote to the wrong father. When it arrives she does not feel what she expected: she thought it would be like a break in the clouds, a sign that this is where they are meant to stay—but nothing of significance happens, not in the visible world or in her soul, so she carries on as she has been and thinks that perhaps this is just the way of life: keeping on keeping on, quietly living in place like most of the rest of humanity.

So she does just that, walking downstairs every day and working behind the counter, feeding her neighbors and strangers, learning faces first, then names, then proclivities and preferences and histories. Reading with Frankie, watching black-and-white films with her mother, cooking with Marie (whose menu options in the diner hardly showcase the remarkable extent of her talents with food), adding small bits of color to the flat: a photo in an actual frame, a rosemary plant, a term report on which Frankie got full marks stuck to the refrigerator, new dishes to replace the ones it would make no difference to find broken when opening the moving box… until they have created a life, small and simple and solid.

Then one day Marie tosses the words she has been waiting weeks—months—for down the counter as if they are nothing more than an order of chips.

“Guess who’s on leave last week of the month? And taking his holiday here.”

Lizzie moves automatically, collecting handfuls of cut potatoes, dropping them in the basket, lowering it into the hot oil. Her heart beats so fast she has trouble speaking without sounding like she’s out of breath.

“Oh? That’s nice.”

Marie watches her out of the corner of her eye.

“I thought we might give a welcome supper.”

“Oh, lovely.”

When she gives Frankie the news he is smug as a cat full of cream. She realizes he must have known about this for weeks. Frankie has not stopped writing letters, though now they go directly to the intended recipient and replies are delivered to the flat. He will not let her see the incoming missives. She has held the sealed envelopes up to the light to try to decipher the overlapping lines within but the writing is close and spiky, and she always sets them back down ignorant of the message they carry. Frankie hoards them away somewhere secret (she suspects his locker at school, since a thorough cleaning of his room unearthed nothing) and stubbornly refuses to discuss their contents. He unbends enough to let her check his for spelling errors before posting them; this way she manages to still hear the words he will not speak, and can gather an idea of what the other side of the conversation entails.

No letters are ever addressed to her, but after Frankie mentions how much cake he devoured on her birthday, the next letter is slightly thicker than usual. Frankie disappears with it and returns after a minute to hand her a small white envelope. A thin chain slides out into her palm; a tiny silver seagull dangles from it. If Nell notices that Lizzie wears it every day she does not mention that either.

*     *     *

Frankie is practically ricocheting from wall to wall by the time seven o’clock rolls around. Denied supper, which is waiting on the final member of their party, he is a tornado of root beer and adrenaline.

She grabs his shirt. “Hold still, son!”

“There he is,” comes a cry, and Marie throws her arm around a dark figure at the doorway.

She turns, and—there he is.

He hugs his sister warmly, shakes hands with Ally, his smile deep around his mouth and eyes, warming his whole face. “Lizzie,” he says, and she nods and smiles and pushes Frankie forward.

His attention immediately locks on the boy and he crouches to bring his face level with Frankie’s so that his lips are easier to read. They begin one of their indecipherable mind-melded conversations, an assortment of sounds and hand signals and facial expressions, and she is almost hypnotized by watching them.

He looks up at her over Frankie’s shoulder. She sees his eyes catch the faint line of the necklace she wears. Then his eyes are fixed on her face again and he doesn’t look away until Marie taps him on the shoulder. “You’re late, and we’re hungry.”

“Shut the shop for me, did you?”

“We’re always closed on Mondays,” she retorts, the grin on her face negating the implication that she would not have gone to such lengths for a mere brother.

They move to the table and Lizzie finds herself walking beside him.

“Your hair got long,” he says, and an instant later their ways part, she to sit at the end of the table, him to sit on the long side, Frankie between them… until, by machinations unseen, he and Frankie swap seats so that Frankie is between him and Nell, with Marie and Ally across from them. She can feel the heat of him from where she sits.

It is completely different and completely the same. The tension of deception gone, he can relax into his natural good humor. And it calms her, draws her happiness into full bloom in a way she cannot remember feeling since Davey first set his sights on her, but _that_ was tainted by something she was able to trace later, looking back from the point where she would recognize it anywhere—and it is absent here, nowhere is his eyes. She feels unfamiliar to herself but in a good way, as though she has been ill and has tonight completed the recovery.

The room is loud, so loud, how can six people make so much noise? They are cheering and shouting at each other, telling stories, giving orders, teasing and arguing and laughing so hard the table dances. He tells his stories to the group but he is usually looking at Frankie, so the boy can follow along, but then he will turn to her at the end of each remark to catch her reaction. Frankie’s head turns between them as though watching a tennis match. The other three watch them too, more discreetly, and she is careful to portion out her gaze equally amongst everyone present. It is hard enough to look _him_ in the eye; she is not ready for knowing looks from the rest of them, and she refuses to give their assumptions any affirmation, especially when she still doesn’t know what this is.

His knee brushes hers sometimes, never lingering but never hurrying to move away, in a way that tells her he is fully aware that they are touching.

Nell takes Frankie upstairs when he falls asleep on the tabletop. He protests, even with glazed eyes and stumbling feet, until Nell tells him the sooner he goes to sleep the sooner he will wake. This line never works for Lizzie, but it always has the potency of a charm when used by Nell. Aiding her is the fact that their plans for the morrow and the following days are a long list of activities Frankie has been compiling for over two weeks, and he is eager to begin.

The boy looks meaningfully at their visitor, then inclines his head toward her. “I’ll see her home safely,” he is promised. Lizzie kisses his head and ruffles his hair. Nell shoos him out. He waves at them from the doorway and taps his wrist. _Don’t be late. Early wake up call._

Many hands make light the work of clean up. They spin around each other with arms full of dishes, to and from the back room to load the dishwasher, over to the sink to wash the wine glasses. Marie turns on the BeeGees and the chore turns into a dance, feet swinging, heads thrown back in terrible falsettos and laughter, and they are almost disappointed when the job is done.

He carefully rolls a cigarette with the aid of the countertop.

“Ought to quit that,” says Marie, who is three weeks into the attempt.

“Nasty habit,” he agrees.

The music changes to Tony Bennett and Marie and Ally slow dance together, still drying glasses as they revolve behind the counter. Marie laughs and waves them off. “Go on, you two.”

They sit on the shallow curb outside the door to the diner. She hooks her arms around her knees and tips her head back. He holds his cigarette carefully away from her. A warm, briny breeze meanders along the empty street; the streetlamps cast golden pools of light across the road, and far above them every star in the black sky is visible. She loves nights like these, when everything feels possible.

They sit without speaking for a while, comfortably quiet, listening to the muffled notes of the music playing inside, and she remembers this—sharing the silence (which is what she knows best, after all); listening around it, that which can sometimes relay more than a million spoken words.

He exhales smoke and says, “You look different.”

“I know. The hair.”

“It’s not that. Last time—all your walls were up.”

She smiles. “I’m not scared anymore.” _It all started with you,_ she wants to say. _Your coming here changed everything,_ but she does not know how to tell him.

His eyes trace the silver chain around her throat. His slow brogue always makes his words sound both careless and meaningful at the same time. “You like it then? Or is this one of those times when you wear a gift after a frantic search through the back of the wardrobe where you threw it and forgot about it?”

“No, I love it. It’s beautiful. I wear it—frequently.”

“Good.”

“Sorry I never thanked you before now.”

“Yes. Why didn’t you?” He startles her with his straightforwardness. He squints at a streetlamp, looks at her. “Why didn’t you write to me?”

“Why didn’t _you_?”

“Because you never did.”

“You might have anyway.”

“I was afraid you might think me too bold and cut off Frankie’s writing to me.”

“I’d never do that.”

“So why didn’t _you_ write to _me_?”

“I… I was afraid you would think me too bold and stop writing Frankie.”

He smiles, but says seriously: “I would never punish him like that. No matter how I felt about you.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” He says it a little louder, his eyes fixed on her with greater intensity, so that she knows this is a different question. Her nerves tangle up and make her voice rise an octave.

“Do I what?”

“Do you know how I feel about you?”

“I—you never said.”

“My letters.” He smiles slightly. “There was plenty of subtext.”

“Frankie won’t let us read your letters.”

He looks away. The cigarette glows yellow, orange. He says, “Ah. Well, I suspected that. But I tried anyway.”

“Tried.”

“Hoped.” He scratches the side of his nose with his thumb. Suddenly he is looking everywhere but at her. She has never seen him shy before and it charms her. Usually this is her territory.

The door opens behind them. Marie locks the door and she and Ally bid them a cheerful goodnight.

“That’s our cue.”

“May I see you home?” he smiles.

She wonders if there will be a reprise of the last scene outside the door to the flat, but he goes no further than the street door. He looks thoughtful, his eyes on the ground.

“Goodnight,” she says, when he does not.

He catches her elbow as she turns to enter. “Read the letters. I’ll tell Frankie it’s alright.”

“Right.”

“See you tomorrow, then.”

“Right.”

It takes her two hours to fall asleep.

*     *     *

He arrives earlier than expected and she rushes through her hair and makeup, terrified by the murmurs coming from the kitchen. When she emerges, however, it is not to Nell giving him a talking-to; rather, they are debating the merits of filtered cigarettes versus roll ups. Frankie looks on, bored.

“Want to come with us, Ma?” But Nell opts to stay home with the television and sees them out with a wave of her hand.

Perhaps the final sign of permanence was when Lizzie traded in the battered white van for a green sedan, which they now pile into that it might convey them into Glasgow to see a real aquarium. Frankie, content until now with pet store fish tanks, is stunned at the spectacle. He floats from one exhibit to the next, nose pressed to the glass, overwhelmed and ecstatic. Lizzie might have grown impatient with the pace but for the man beside her. It turns out that he without a past, present, or future has one of each, actually, and is eager to tell her about them. They drift after Frankie, attending to the wonders around them when he drags their attention to the water and its inhabitants, deep in conversation otherwise.

So human, isn’t it?—this sudden exposure of secrets, the desire to know and be known. She wonders if she will ever have the courage to tell him how terrified she was of him at first, of the power he seemed to wield over her son, that she was shamefully jealous of their effortless connection, and how his proving he was worth the trust he demanded had been the first crack in the foundation she so tremulously clung to—And then there it is, at the tip of her tongue, and she has to join Frankie at the glass wall until the impulse passes.

The largest tank in the aquarium stretches from the ground to the ceiling three stories above. It is cylindrical, and all those assembled inside—hordes of fish, a sea turtle, small sharks—swim in unceasing circles within the circumference. What instinct tells a fish to move its fins, even when being carried by the current? What tells it to keep swimming, that it must not stop?

He is asking about the letters. About the scenes afterward he missed.

“It was a relief,” she relates, “to tell him the whole truth.” There was no way around it, really: the change in handwriting would have been suspect, and Frankie recognizes her handwriting now even when in block letters, and besides she was sick of lying. So she confessed everything and swore to always be honest in the future, and was forgiven. They got the new mailing address from Marie.

What she didn’t think about, and what hurt the most, was that so many constants—moving, lying, letters—were suddenly gone. She misses writing to Frankie. She misses the writing itself, to be always inventing and imagining. And the learning—as Frankie had got older she had to know her facts, so she researched, she learned about the world she was putting to paper. Suddenly none of it was necessary. Nell said she had stopped living her own life, the way she was always on the move—but she’d had this entirely separate one, all in her mind, and it had been enough—barely, but enough. And now it is over.

“So,” she says shakily, beaming, “I’ve enrolled in night classes. I might even be able to teach when I’m done.”

Lizzie marvels over how well she can read his face, so like his sister’s; his expressions are far more subtle, and she would not have thought much about the small things (the faint lift of an eyebrow, a tug at the corner of his mouth) had she not come to know bigger versions of them on Marie’s face, the silent language of which she is now practically fluent in. So she knows that what is gathering in his eyes right now is unstaunched pride and that the tightening of his mouth is a little bit of awe. It makes her warm all over and something swells in her chest. _Get ahold of yourself,_ she orders herself. _Are you seventeen again?_ But she doesn’t look away.

He tells her a little about how he came to be a seaman, how the life of a nomad isn’t for everyone but he likes it fine, and that when he’s on land he spends almost every second of it flying over quiet country backroads on his motorbike. He asks her a hundred questions, the ones he couldn’t ask in front of Frankie when pretending to be someone she had once married and had a child with. He crowds her without apology. Anywhere she turns, there is the broad black expanse of his chest, there is his arm bumping into hers, there is his head leaning toward her to drop a remark in her ear.

Frankie observes this without comment. His eyes miss nothing, she knows. Lizzie would have expected him to begrudge her the time that is rightfully his, but he seems content to wander while they talk at a distance. He has a horse in this race too, come to think of it. Clever boy.

The sun is setting when they exit. Supper is bought from a street vendor and carried to a nearby pier. They feed the cold leftover chips to the gulls and make sailboats out of the paper cartons. “All good ships deserve a name,” he tells Frankie, who christens his _H.M.S. Catriona_. They watch the three miniature craft bob on the orange-tipped waves below them.

When they stand together at the rail he rests his arm right against hers. Strange how such a slight thing feels so possessive: that the space against her skin is his to inhabit.

She watches him watching Frankie, taking in all he can: the wonder of this kid, the wonder that _is_ this kid. She knows; doesn’t she do it, herself, every day? He knows; they have read the same letters, heard the same voice. Oh, this child. This boy. Her boy. Her fighter, all that spirit in him, the determination and intelligence and creativity and heart, how is it possible so much can fit inside such a small body? Her greatest desire is that he not lose it. The world will try so hard in the next few years to make him believe he is _less_. Right now he knows better. Let him never forget it. Let him stay strong and steady. She looks at the man next to her and knows he would give everything he has to ensure that happens, just as she would.

When they say goodnight and she steps into the flat, he catches Frankie’s sleeve and crouches so that they are at eye level. She keeps walking, letting them have this moment together, time which both of them so treasure. She knows what one part of the conversation will mention—his letters—and the anticipation makes her feel like she is a child the day before Christmas.

She finds her mother at the kitchen table, newspaper spread before her. After Davey’s death, Nell stopped reading the obituaries—briefly. Weeks later she was poring over them again, wiping her eyes at some and subjecting others to blistering review. “They’re like an old friend,” she told her daughter, who merely shook her head and kept the supply flowing.

Now Lizzie kisses a soft, dry cheek and goes to the sink to fill the kettle. “Listen to this one,” Nell tells her, and they read their way through the final chapters of strangers’ lives until the handle turns in the latch and the deadbolt falls into place. Frankie stumbles into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and content. Nell gathers him onto her lap despite his size and hers. She sings a lullaby Lizzie was born knowing, and Frankie watches her lips move and leans against the vibrations in her chest, as they have done so many times before; and the daughter of one and mother of the other thinks how strange and wonderful it is that such a simple life can be so full.

*     *     *

Lizzie works the early shift because she likes to be home when Frankie gets off school, an arrangement that does not bother Marie, who enjoys the evening crowd; so she is surprised to find the door open when she goes down. Surely Marie would not forget to lock up, but she has never come in early without warning. Lizzie enters cautiously, wary of intruders, and finds the proprietress’s brother instead, settled at a corner table with a newspaper spread wide.

“Oh,” she says, thrown. “Hiya.”

“Morning.” His glance skims over her, looking for evidence in her posture or expression.

“I haven’t read them yet.”

“I can see that. Hungry?” He nods towards the back of the shop.

She follows her nose to the end of the counter and finds a pot of tea sitting beside a mess of eggs and two halved and toasted biscuits staying warm on the hot plate.

“You fixed me breakfast?”

“Us,” he corrects.

With heightened color and shaking hands she carries the tray to the table, and he clears away the paper and helps her arrange the food. There is a smile in his eyes that warms her all the way through.

They talk mostly about items in the newspaper before she must attend to the morning rush. Nothing difficult—she serves coffee and plates croissants and bagels provided by a local bakery –but a steady stream of patrons all morning allows little time for real conversation. He helps her with inventory before strapping on an apron and manning the fish fryer for the lunch crowd. She laughs when he puts a Bowie album on, and they open the front door and let the music pour out into the street. Half the diners spend their meal singing along.

*     *     *

Then suddenly he is leaving, because a shipmate’s wife has had a baby and the vacancy on board must be filled.

Lizzie has been operating on the expectation of three more days, and this flurry of farewells is not what she anticipated—it is no setting for the things she wants to say and hear. He embraces her briefly, a peck on the cheek near her ear, and all she can give him is a wavering smile in return. Frankie is dramatic with disappointment and requires the lion’s share of attention, a ploy he is welcome to play out as far as Lizzie is concerned—she feels eyes on her warm face, and when she speaks her voice squeaks, and she is enjoying this leavetaking even less than her son but she would set Frankie’s stamp collection on fire before letting on to any of those present.

He looks sadly up at her, this son with eyes like hers, and she knows without seeing that they are a mirror-match. “He’ll come back, Frankie.” She chucks him under the chin affectionately, reassuringly. “You’re his boy.”

He leans into her and together they watch the figure in black climb the gangway and disappear behind a steel door.

*     *     *

She is curled up with _Jane Eyre_ on the couch when her unsmiling son unceremoniously dumps a dilapidated wooden box onto to the coffeetable and crosses his arms. Grains of sand fall off the sides. She is about to remark on his attitude when she realizes what the box contains.

The first thing she thinks is: I didn’t realize there were so _many_.

The second is: _Sand?_ Does he cherish these so much that he hides them by _burying_ them?

“I’ll be very careful with them, Frankie,” she promises. “I’ll put them back exactly the way they were.”

Most of the content discusses ocean life, or answers questions about the ship or ports visited, or offers requested advice about Frankie’s schoolmates or teachers. And she _loves_ that—she loves the vision of this man sitting in his cramped berth, writing letter after letter to her son about nothing and everything.

He never mentions her by name; if he does mention her, it is as _your mama_ ; and more often than not he never mentions her at all. More common are references she will recognize: places they went and things they did while he was last there; others are more carefully embedded, such as lines from songs they heard cleverly woven into sentences. Some letters she has to read through twice to find the reference.

_I’m having supper in a café near the docks and Johnny Cash is playing on the radio as I write this._

_just a painting but I couldn’t look away from her eyes_

_nothing but tap water available, and it tastes rubbish_

_We saw a pod of porpoises today. They swam right alongside the ship for an hour. Must have been thirty at least, and a good number were young. Do you know about porpoises, Frankie? They are a community of mothers, all pitching in to help each other protect and raise their young, just like your mama and grandmamma. The best mothers in the whole ocean, Frankie._

And something about this, these piecemeal remarks inserted specifically for her, makes her tremble more than fifty love letters dripping with adoration would have done. It is the proof that she was on his mind when he stood at the ship’s rail in the middle of the sea or the docks in Belize or strolling down the street in Rotterdam, even when he feared her indifferent and knew instinctively that she was not seeing them, he made the effort because he could not help it, he could not keep her out. The same way she has carried him with her, like color in the blood.

When she is finished she takes the letters to the library and photocopies every single one, front and back. She has a feeling that while Frankie did not question his marching orders, this is a one-time loan.

Their correspondence gets off to a rocky start. She is afraid of boring him. He is not as expressive with her as he was in Frankie’s letters. It takes a while to get a rhythm, until she finally says to hell with it and lets the words flow. To her relief, he responds in kind. She knows she must bore him regardless—some of his more ship-oriented epistles certainly bore her—but the value is in the words, in the pseudo-conversation, in learning each other, in the thought that he touched this same paper, that he purposely set these words down for her to read.

She times her postings around Frankie’s so that she will not receive more letters than he does and inadvertently hurt him, especially since they have something he cannot share in: telephone calls. These are a rare luxury due to often being in vastly different time zones, but they know how to be grateful when the alternative is silence.

*     *     *

They load the car and pull out. Lizzie checks the rear mirror; Nell is briefly visible, her form in the doorway behind them a flash across the glass. They wave goodbye with their arms out the windows. Frankie, map spread over his knees, is navigator.

Miles roll away underneath them. Scotland in the summer is a thing of glory: pale blue skies, sun shining through the wind, green and yellow hills offering them safe passage. It is a long time since they have been in Edinburgh.

He is surprised to see them, as of course he must be, and though busy is quite pleased, which is a relief. After all, he gave his port schedule to Frankie; did he think they would not utilize it? He is working, not on leave, and this is his last stop in Scotland for two months, and what other choice was there? He tells her he was trying to figure out how to visit them in a way that would not involve them having to be awake throughout the night to accommodate it. She tells him she bought a car in order to use it.

Frankie runs ahead, his shoes banging on the wood of the boardwalk. Lizzie pushes her hair out of her face; the evening is windy. She breathes in the sea air and wonders if her kiss would taste like salt. A kiss only a seaman would love.

She takes a deep breath and says, “Do you remember when we met?”

“How could I forget.”

She walks a few steps. “I saw you and—I—”

“You knew?” His grin is wide enough to split the sky.

“Well, not right then,” she concedes. “I knew what I might like you to be, just for a split second. What about you?”

“That wasn’t my first impression of you. My first impression of you was from Marie. I thought you must be mental, I thought it was a terrible idea. I didn’t want to go meet you, but she talked me into it. And then I saw Frankie’s picture and I couldn’t say no. And I read your letters, the ones you wrote to Frankie—and—I knew.”

“Knew I was mental?”

“Knew I had a lot of ground to make up. Especially with you so guarded and prickly.”

“I told you. I knew what I wanted you to be, and it scared me to death. I didn’t want to go back down that road, open those doors. And then Frankie latched on to you and I saw myself losing him. But you gave him back to me. You gave us back to each other,” she corrects. “I never could have done it myself. We never could have gotten to where we are today on our own.” Gratitude makes him uncomfortable so she leaves it unsaid.

He says, “Do you think you’re the only one? Mine’s a good life, sure. But I look at the two of you and—I’ve never thought much about the future, you know? Aside from making captain. But you two. I want to be there. I want to be in your future. I want you in mine.”

She signals Frankie. “I’m glad you feel that way.” Her son lopes toward them, the huge, knowing smile on his face immediately giving the game away, or at least hinting at it. Lizzie puts her hands on his shoulders and looks over his head, nearly as tall as her chin. She is flushed red and smiling almost too wide to speak as she continues. “Because we have a proposition for you. Frankie and I have discussed it. We want you to join our family.” Frankie nods firmly.

He stares at them.

“This is a formal invitation,” she tells him with mock severity. “You must provide an answer.”

“Well then.” He clears his throat. “Well then. I guess this is the time for this, then,” and so saying he pulls a green ring box out of his pocket.

Her smile fades. She lifts her eyes to his face and meets a steady gray gaze and her breath catches because it is alight with happiness and certainty, and every answer she could have wanted is there.

Frankie yelps with joy and whirls around the walkway like a dervish, disrupting the roosting gulls and startling passerby. They will join him soon enough; first there is the matter of a long-overdue second kiss to attend to.

 _And he’d bring me joy, and lasting peace_ goes the song, and isn’t that the truth after all.

*     *     *

“Want a wee of whiskey, Ma?”

“Why, what are we celebrating?”

Lizzie smiles.


End file.
